SINGLELEAF PINON. 79 



In a few instances this pine has been used for crossties. Railroads 

 cross the region in a number of directions, and necessity sometimes 

 compels the builders to employ the crooked trunks for temporary 

 ties and for short timbers in trestles. A more important use of the 

 wood is for mine timbers. Short pieces can frequently be employed 

 to advantage in shoring up stopes and strengthening the walls and 

 roofs of tunnels and galleries. Some of the most productive silver 

 mines ever worked in this country, and many gold mines also, have 

 been located in this pine's range, and the miners put it to every use 

 where it could possibly be made to serve. It was, and is, the main 

 dependence for fuel in large districts. It provides heat for boilers 

 that pump the mine shafts and hoist the ores. The cooking, baking, 

 laundry work, and the warming of homes and camps are possible in 

 many places only by utilizing the singleleaf pine that covers the 

 mesas and ridges. 



An industry that is important, though not large, is the burning of 

 charcoal. Portable blacksmith shops are carried into remote canyons 

 or high up on mountains where prospectors are developing mines, 

 and the only fuel for sharpening, mending, and tempering tools is 

 the charcoal burned from this pine in the rude pits built near the 

 source of the wood supply. As a charcoal material on some of the 

 most rugged mountains, it sometimes goes to the pit with the western 

 junipers which maintain a foothold on plateaus and ranges so high 

 that even the pine can not grow there, but the charcoal burner brings 

 them together. 



The singleleaf pine is not an ideal farm timber, and it would sel- 

 dom be put to that use if anything else could be had ; but the circum- 

 stances which cause it to be employed in mines lead also to its use 

 on ranches. Some timber must be had, even on the most unpreten- 

 tious desert homestead, and the pine is cut for fences and sheds. It 

 serves also for repairing wagons and farm machines. 



BY-PRODUCTS. 



This tree has one by-product which gives it a peculiar importance. 

 Groves and stands of the singleleaf pine are known locally and not 

 unaptly as "the redman's orchard." Its phenomenal production of 

 fruit has been spoken of. Every year is not a fruitful year, but a 

 failure of crop is unknown, and when good years come, as they do 

 quite often, the yield is tremendous. It has been said that in total 

 production in a good season this pine's nut crop probably exceeds 

 California's wheat crop. 1 As it is a desert tree, growing on wastes 

 and among remote mountains and scattered over tens of thousands of 

 square miles, in regions with few inhabitants or none, very few of 



1 The Mountains of California, p. 222, John Muir. 



